Star Watching

 Albireo

photo:  http://spaceinfo.jaxa.jp/ja/binary_star.html

Many people are eager to go all the way to world heritage sites, but they even don’t seem to notice that there is a breathtaking view just above our head.  It’s the night sky.  I think that it’s a shame for all of us to lose the opportunity to see it because of the light pollution in big cities.

Last weekend, I got out of the town and headed to the mountain area to enjoy watching stars in spring.  It was a new moon night and the best time for observing stars.  Although it was raining when we got there, we were very positive that the sky would clean up by midnight.  And, as we expected, the rain stopped.  Besides, the rain washed away the dust in the air and sky became nice and clear, which we seldom have a chance to see.  How lucky we were!

Some experts operated a few telescopes that were connected to computers.  They input some data of the location of stars that we want to watch so that telescopes would automatically start searching them.  It’s like an auto pilot system for airplanes.  Unless we use computers, it will take a lot of time to focus on the targeted stars because some of them are just itsy-bitsy spots in the sky.

We explored the night sky up until dawn.  The stars we watched at night were various.  Albireo, which appears to be a single star to the naked eye is actually beautiful double stars through a telescope.  The Saturn is an observable bright star with your naked eyes if you don’t expect to see its ring.  Some galaxies such as M57 ring nebula, M27 dumb-bell nebula, globular Clusters are really exciting because they are beyond my perception of time and distance.

The Milky Way on that night was incredibly clear and we were able to see the white belt that flew from the Swan to the Scorpion.  We also saw some artificial satellites flying across the sky while we were looking up the Milky Way.  The more I know about the night sky, the more I like it.  It’s very addictive.

Milky Way
photo:  http://kai-kuu.jugem.jp

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Women’s Notebook

The government is now planning to introduce “women’s notebook” （女性手帳）as one of the countermeasures to the falling birthrate.  It is to promote young women learning right knowledge about their reproduction mechanism and also to encourage to give birth to a baby by the time they reach their mid 30s.

Raising children is not an easy task and there is no doubt that women should go through the process while they are still young.  Besides, as they get older, their eggs get older as well and the chance of pregnancy definitely drops down.  As far as educational aspect is concerned, the government attempt is understandable. 

However, I’m still uncomfortable with this “women’s notebook.”  For me, it seems that the government is trying to push women to take some responsibility for the declining of the birthrate.  It’s not just women’s problems, though.

In the first place, what caused the birthrate to decline?

Women have been encouraged to work more in their workplace.  And with the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society or 男女共同参画社会基本法, women are expected to occupy 30% of managerial position in various fields of the society at least by 2020.  Working women’s 30s is a very important period to build their career.  That’s because women have some sort of fear that they may loose the place where they are after coming back from maternity leave. 

On the other hand, men seem to be less confident and less responsible for making their own family.   Looking around me, girls are sometimes complaining about their boyfriend.  One girl said that her boyfriend is dilly-dallying getting married because he isn’t a regular employee, even though they have been dating for many years.  And another girl said that her boyfriend is indifferent talking about becoming a father.  Maybe, men are not mature enough to build up their own family.

Apparently, it’s not just for women who have to tackle with the declining birthrate.  Men should also get involved in it as being a good partner with women.  And, one thing for sure is that we need to respect any decision that a married couple makes, whether they want to have a baby or not and when they want to have a baby.  We are not living for the sake of nation’s policy.

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